The common Spanish word aprender (“to learn”) comes from the similar Latin, apprehendere for the same.

From the same Latin root, we get a variety of related English words, most notably, apprentice — an apprentice just learns from the master, right?

A few other English words come from the same root, although less directly, including, apprehend: what is learning if not arresting all the information and knowledge and wisdom you hear and keep it in your mind? And apprise, which is just notifying someone — and that is really just sharing your learnings! We also get the English apprehensive: perhaps being apprehensive is just being scared of some knowledge?

Nerds love to pattern-match, to find commonalities among everything. Our approach to learning languages revolves (the same -volve- that is in "volver", to "return") around connecting the Spanish words to the related English words via their common etymologies - to find the linguistic patterns, because these patterns become easy triggers to remember what words mean. Want to know more? Email us and ask: [email protected]